Bioinspired activation strategies for Peano-HASEL artificial muscle.

Background: Human muscles perform many functions during activities of daily living producing a wide range of force outputs, displacements, and velocities. This versatile ability is believed to be associated with muscle activation strategies, such as the number and position of activated motor units within the muscle, as well as the frequency, magnitude and shape of the activation signal. Activation strategies similar to those in the human neuromuscular system could increase the functionality of artificial muscles.

Metagenomics unveils the role of hospitals and wastewater treatment plants on the environmental burden of antibiotic resistance genes and opportunistic pathogens.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global health challenge, with hospitals and wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) serving as significant pathways for the dissemination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). This study investigates the potential of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) as an early warning system for assessing the burden of AMR at the population level. In this comprehensive year-long study, effluent was collected weekly from three large hospitals, and treated and untreated wastewater were collected monthly from three associated community WWTPs.

Modular multi-channel high voltage arbitrary waveform generator and imaging setup for dielectric elastomer actuator characterisation.

Various applications require multi-channel high-voltage sources for their control, e.g. electrostatic adhesion, electrophoresis and artificial muscles such as piezoelectric, hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic(HASEL) and dielectric elastomer actuators(DEAs).

Evaluation of wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 in a prison population: a mixed-methods approach.

Background: Prisons are high-risk settings for the transmission of communicable disease. Robust surveillance systems are required to identify and control outbreaks. Wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 was introduced in four prisons in Wales in March 2022.

Work-related impacts on doctors' mental health: a qualitative study exploring organisational and systems-level risk factors.

Background: Protecting doctors' mental health has typically focused on individuals, rather than addressing organisational and structural-level factors in the work environment.

Objectives: This study uses the socioecological model (SEM) to illuminate and explore how these broader factors inform the mental health of individual doctors.

Design: Semi-structured interviews (20-25 hours) and ethnographic observations (90 hours) involving work shadowing doctors (n=14).